So here is my problem.

Like many people who train in their own home gym or garage gym, space is often limited.

For instance, I train in a two-car garage, but for the most part, the equipment is only on one side of the garage, because the other side is for the car that belongs to the lady of the house.

The result is that I can’t get everything that I want to have, inside the small space that I have available for me.

For instance, I would love to have a separate bench set-up and squat cage, but I simply don’t have the room, so I bench in my squat cage.

It would be great to have a complete set of dumbbells from 5′s all the way up to 150′s, but I just don’t have the room.

I’d also love to have my cable / weight stack machine right there where everything else is, but the damn thing is so large, it just isn’t going to work, so that unit is pushed off to a completely separate room.

Much of my auxiliary training recently has been based on Super-sets, Pairings, whatever you want to call them… two or more exercises done pretty much back to back.

However, the walk from the main platform to the cable machine I was using for supplemental tricep work was making me crazy, so I needed to find a different way to get the Tricep work in without having to walk a mile during my workout. I mean, the purpose of doing exercises back-to-back is to NOT rest between sets, and the walk between movements was killing my pump.

And let me just say, there is no way I am going to do Dumbbell Tricep Kick-backs. All I can think of every time I have thought about doing them is that there is a paparazzi in a bush outside my house with a camera trying to get a picture of me doing them.

Beyond that neurosis, no matter how heavy or light I go with kick-backs, or how controlled or uncontrolled I do them, I never feel anything the next day. So they are out!

So, I was trying to think of something else I could do that would be easy to set up and that would take up very little room and I came up with this little exercise…

Banded Tricep Extensions

I don’t know why these never crossed my mind before, considering how much I already use and love bands, but I am happy that the idea finally slapped me in the face.

This movement is perfect for anyone looking for a different Tricep Exercise to do. Here are a few reasons to give it, and bands in general, a try.

Minimum Equipment Needed
In the video, I use my squat cage to harness the bands down, but really any sturdy object will work. I could easy use the jack-pole that supports the roof and guys who train in their college dorm room could use their bed, desk, or a door knob.

Great Value in Bands
Bands are sort of expensive I guess, running from $20 to $40 apiece, but when you consider how versatile they are, the price per exercise plummets. I use bands for tons of different ways. Here’s an older clip using bands in a different exercise pairing, Upper Body Finisher: Push-ups and Pull-aparts.

Easy to Set-up
It takes about 10 seconds to tie the loop-knot between the two bands and 2 seconds to wrap them around the sturdy object.

Little Space Required
Using the purple bands I only needed to step back away from the tie-down about two feet and that was enough tension. And if you were in a tighter space, all you’d have to do is choke up on the bands and you’d be set.

Full-ROM Tension
The main difference, functionally-speaking, between this movement and Kick-backs is that there is tension on the muscle the entire time. Momentum is very little of a factor as long as you concentrate on minimizing it. I was mainly just demonstrating reps in the video, but when I have done these in my workouts, I’ve focused on performing them more strictly.

This is just the start of what is possible with bands. If you get a set I am sure you’ll be able to think up a ton more stuff you can do with them.

LESSON LEARNED

In closing, don’t get tunnel vision in your training. Take a moment to think things through when you are stuck on something, because the answer might be as obvious as replacing the normal implement with a band. Awesome.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

All the best in your training,

Jedd

Programming Your Movements for Muscle Gains

In Part I of this Build Muscle The Right Way Article Series, I spoke about the three most important keys I use for building muscle and gaining strength at the same time: Multi-joint Movements, Training for Power and Speed, and Working for Muscular Balance. You can read Part I here: Keys to Muscle Building.

Sample Upper Body Training Split

In Part I, I put a lot of emphasis on maintaining antagonistic balance so that you do not develop muscular imbalances that will cause you trouble later on down the road. Also as I stated Part I, if you perform your complementary Push and Pull movements on the same day, it can be easier to keep everything balanced. However, because I spend so much time training for Grip Strength, I run out of time in order to accomplish everything I like to do, so I split the two days up. Lately, my split has looked like this:

• Week 1 – Day 1: Push, Week 1 – Day 2: Pull, Week 1 – Day 3: Lower, Week 1 – Day 4: Grip Specific
• Week 2 – Day 1: Pull, Week 2 – Day 2: Push, Week 2 – Day 3: Lower, Week 2 – Day 4: Grip Specific

In other words, I go Push, Pull, Lower, Grip for the first week and then flip flop the Push and Pull so it goes Pull, Push, Lower, Grip the second week.

Sample Upper Body Push Workout

Here is a recent workout I did for Upper Body Push. This workout took place on a Monday. It was followed by an Upper Body Pull Day on Tuesday and then a Lower Body Day on Thursday. One week later, I followed the schedule and did my Upper Body Pull Day first and the Upper Body push day second, etc.

Optimally, the order of this day would go like this:

1. Overhead Power Movement: Requires the most skill and energy, so it should take place first

2. Bench / Incline Bench: Because the body is supported on the bench, even after doing a big movement like the Overhead Variations, I still feel strong on the bench going second.

3. Auxiliary Bench Movement: Examples could be Speed Bench Against Bands, Incline Bench, Dips – All these are awesome, especially if your shoulders are feeling good.

4. Isolation Movement: If isolation movements are your thing, you can include them here or you can do another auxiliary movement, work on the rotator cuffs, or bring up a weakness in your upper body (triceps, etc)

Bench Press

On this day, I started off with Bench Press, although often I will actually start off with Overhead Press, especially if I am using the Log. I was able to work up to an unassisted single of 365 on the Bench Press, for the first time in about a year. My all time best is 405 with a spotter.

Speed Bench Against Bands

In order to perform this one correctly and get the most out of it, you should be moving the bar much quicker than this. I should have either used lighter bands or lightened the bar weight, but I did not.

Military Press

My back was feeling a bit seized up after the heavy benching, because I was actually arching pretty hard for me. That is about all the angle I get. If I worked on my thoracic mobility more, I think I could get a better arch. Anyway, because my back was tight, I stuck with Military Press instead of a more powerful movement. Like I said, I like to do a Push Jerk, Push Press or a straight out Jerk movement first, but it didn’t work out that way this week.

Gironda Lateral Raise Complex

This is a combination I never even knew about until I reviewed the book, Vince Gironda, Legend and Myth. In that book he has what he calls the 8 Sets of 8 Keep-You-Honest Workout and the finisher for Upper Body Day is Side Laterals followed immediately by what he calls the Dumbbell Swing, but I have affectionately called it the Pirate Ship. Regardless of what you call it, it mimics the movement of the Pirate Ship ride at the amusement park in the way the arms swing rhythmically back and forth.

I don’t want to say that this movement pairing or even that just doing the Pirate Ship movement “fixed” whatever was aching in my shoulder the last few weeks, but after doing it every week for roughly 6 weeks straight as my finisher for my Upper Body push day, my shoulders have felt outstanding! I was able to perform dips pain free, getting my rib cage to touch the cross-bar on my dip station for the first time I can remember in years, and I was able to Bench 365 touch-and-go style for the first time in ages. I encourage you to try this out. At the very least the combination pumps your shoulders with a very nice burn.

This is how I set up the strength training muscle building workouts. Because I work a variety of percentages of 1RM, a variety of speeds, and train volume as well, I have been fairly successful at building muscle and strength at the same time as long as I am eating enough calories, staying injury free, and getting enough sleep.

I have had several months in a row now where I have been free of lower back injuries so I have not missed many workouts and recently my strength levels and size have increased.

Now that the latest Grip Contest, Gripmas Carol 2011, is out of the way, I plan on adding conditioning work back into my weekly routine separate of my workouts and cleaning up my diet as well in an effort to trim down a bit and get just plain ripped to shreds in 2012.

If you want to watch some of the stuff that I do for conditioning and fat loss, I can certainly film it, but only if you are interested. I don’t know if this is something you want to see or not on my site, so please leave me a comment an let me know.

Thanks and all the best in your training.

Jedd

For further information on building muscle, check out Smitty’s AMD Program by clicking the image below. This is one of the best Muscle Building Programs on the market, shares many of the same principles I am sharing here, and includes many other ways to keep you healthy and balanced in order to build muscle the right eway.

Weighted Rope Curl Ups

I do a small amount of personal training here in my facility. I am lucky enough to have found some guys who will literally try anything I challenge them to do, and they often end up performing the exercises just as well if not better than me. One morning this week, my trainee and good friend Mark was here and I had him do an exercise for his Biceps that he said hit them very well. He liked it so much, I knew I had to try it later on in my workout as well.

Equipment Needed for This Lift

The way we performed this exercise was with a rope. The rope is about 6 feet long. If you do not have a rope, a towel will work fine as long as it is a nice thick towel. An old beat up towel is probably going to rip on you so don’t try it. We used two Pony Clamps to secure the weight onto the rope. That’s all you need!

Benefits of This Lift

I feel this lift is best used as a finisher for the Biceps. What I look for in a Finisher is something that just outright blows the Biceps up, pumping it full of Blood. I do the rest of my larger movements influencing the biceps (Chin-ups, Barbell Curls, etc) first and then use isolation movements like this to bring massive amounts of blood and expansion in. In addition, the pump and increased blood flow helps to fend off and recover from inflammation in the elbows and forearms (tendonitis, epicondylitis, etc).

How to Perform This Lift

The basic way to perform this lift is to grip the towel with the elbows positioned about 90 degrees. From there, you will take your top hand and shift it beneath the lower hand, keeping the hands in contact with one another with each re-grip.

Other Variations of this Lift

Instead of just maintaining a consistent angle of about 90-degrees, you can also vary away from that angle. In the video below, I start out with two sets where I keep my elbow angle around 90 degrees and then finish with a third set where I move throughout the ROM, changing a few degrees at a time. Both variations worked well for an awesome pump.

I definitely suggest you give this exercise a try. My arms were blown up for about an hour afterwards, and I even hit a bunch of Grip, so I’d imagine if this was the last thing I did, I would have had a pump for much longer.

Weighted Rope Curl Ups

Now here is a quick demo. Sorry for repeating some of this information in the video. You will see that once I get up to 75-lbs, this exercise is damn challenging. Feel free to change up the weights to make the exercise work for you.

Let’s Connect

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All the best in your training,

Jedd

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I’ve never really discussed heavy bicep curling that much here on the site. It hasn’t seemed to be something that was all that Diesel.

All I have really done with any consistency over the last five years for my biceps has pretty much been Reverse Curls with an E-Z Curl Bar.

That is one of the lifts I do week in and week out in order to fend off and negate any connective tissue inflammation near the elbow. I mentioned this for the first time in the Card Tearing eBook in the section on injury prevention, I believe.

Recently, when I got the Grip 4orce handles, I added in Alternating Dumbbell Curls because I absolutely love the way it hits deep in the thumbs.

When I am feeling Ultra Napalmish and want to not only blow up my biceps but also work my wrist radial deviators statically, I will hit some Scale Weight Hammer Curls. I might do these once a month if that.

But lately I have added one other Bicep Execution into the fray. Here’s the story.

The Rob Vigeant 100-lb Dumbbell Curl Challenge

I was looking through my YouTube subscriptions the other day and the name Rob Vigeant caught my eye. If you don’t know who Rob is, don’t worry, because I am going to tell you. Rob is now a professional arm wrestler, but in 2003 and 2004, Rob was probably the best Grip Athlete in the United States, bar none.

I’ve watched him nearly beat Steve McGranahan at the first Grip Contest I ever competed in, and I watched him beat the likes of Dave Ostlund, Shane Larson, and myself in Minnesota in January of 2004. And then he came to PA again in the Fall of 2004 and wreaked havoc one more time, taking the title at the Global Grip Challenge, beating Clay Edgin, Dave Morton, and Tommy Heslep, among others.

So this dude is built like a Diesel Truck from the shoulder down. He might however, have a smaller lower body than me, which is damn hard to do… (Sorry, Rob. With all the ass kissing I am doing for you, I need to take a shot somehow)

Since Vigeant has not been involved in Grip since pre-2005, any time I see his name come up in the title of a new video on YouTube, I am damn sure going to watch it.

The video was by Josh Dale, the People’s Dietitian, and he talked about a challenge that came from Rob Vigeant. As it turns out, several years ago Vigeant had made the statement that he did not think there was a man alive who could curl a 100-lb dumbbell in a strict curl fashion.

To put aside any speculation, let’s watch the only video that I can find of Rob Vigeant performing his strict curl:

Rob Vigeant: 85+ Lb Curl

Now, there may indeed be a set of rules somewhere in the USAWA handbook or some other listing that details a different set of requirements for the “Strict Dumbbell Curl,” but I am honestly not going to look for them.

Josh did post a curl at the end of his video and he did an impressive 75-lb Curl, as you will see below…

Josh Dale: 75-lb Dumbbell Curl

This challenge seemed very interesting to me for many reasons. First and foremost because I know Josh Dale well and have competed with him many times, but also because I have seen Rob Vigeant’s power up close and so thought it would be a good way to compare my abilities against one of the strongest lower arms out there.

So I gave it a try and during my first set of attempts, I got up to 70-lbs.

Jedd Johnson, Dumbbell Curl with 65 & 70 lbs

A few days later, I gave this another try while waiting for a friend to come to the house and train, and I ended up getting a 75-lb Curl for a couple of singles with each hand.

Jedd Johnson: 75-lb Dumbbell Curl

Notice at the end of the video, 100-lbs is not going ANYWHERE.

Of course, since I am putting up videos of curls, there is somebody out there who put up a Thumbs Down on one of my videos. Tough guys. Oh well.

So, I stand at 75-lbs right now. And that would be the end of the post, but Josh has thrown down the gauntlet and topped me by about two pounds, with the following submission to the challenge.

Josh Dale: 77+ lbs Dumbbell Curl

Ohhh no he didn’t!!!

So it looks like I will have dig out and dust off my loadable handles and give this a try with it.

Incidentally, I think I still have some gas in the tank to call upon, some turbo boosters if you will, as back in 2002/2003 or whatever the following video was shot in, I did perform a seated curl with a 90-lb Dumbbell in each hand.

Jedd Johnson: Seated Dumbbell Curl with 90-lbs

If you want to give this challenge a try, go ahead and jump in and then send the video link to Josh on YouTube. His channel is FeatCheater. Also make sure that you subscribe to my youtube as well: Jedd Johnson’s YouTube.

All the best in your training!

Jedd

P.S. I know there are probably tons of guys out there that can curl more than this. So please don’t go overboard when you see the titles I put on my videos. This is just my Napalm Psychology at work against Josh.

One of my funky little Kettlebell Grip Drills

Sometimes people ask me why the heck I would want to put all of that time into training only 5% of my body.

I understand why people ask this. In fact, when I first heard about training Grip, I thought it was a waste of time too.

However, I did think it would be cool to tear a deck of cards in half so I decided to give Grip Training a try.

Within a few weeks I was tearing decks of cards, but to my surprise, a lot of my other lifts were also going up.
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